14ymedio – Page 335 – Translating Cuba

A New Contingent of Cuban Doctors Arrives in Venezuela

The Venezuelan Chancellor, Jorge Arreaza, receives the new contingent of Cuban doctors. (Twitter/@cancilleriaVE)

14ymedio, Havana, August 2020 — A new contingent of Cuban doctors arrived in Caracas on Sunday to join the Barrio Adentro mission, according to the Minister of Venezuelan Foreign Relations. This makes 230 health workers added to those already deployed in the Caribbean country to attend to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This was what Chávez and Fidel dreamed about and constructed. It’s up to us to continue carrying forward the dreams of our commandantes and show the North American imperialists that no one and nothing will divide us,” said the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, in his statements on Twitter.

in his speech, Arreaza thanked the Cuban authorities for their support to Venezuela to combat coronavirus, qualifying the Cuban doctors as “heros and heroines who are risking their lives to work in our country”. continue reading

According to official data from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, most of the COVID-19 positives entering the Island are coming from Venezuela. However, the Ministry has suppressed reports on the exact origin of 41 of the cases reported and where it said “traveler coming from Venezuela”, it now says “source of infection abroad”.

Last July, a group of 26 health workers arrived in Maracaibo, Venezuela, according to authorities, to reinforce efforts before an outbreak of coronavirus that was generated in the Las Pulgas market.

There are more than 20,000 Cuban health workers in Venezuela, including doctors, nurses and technicians, according to official data for 2019. Last April, the Government of Nicolás Maduro announced the importation of 1,200 professionals from the Island, justifying his decision by decreeing an emergency because of the pandemic.

For each health official, Venezuela pays Cuba more than $10,000 per month, in addition to supplying the country with fuel, although the opposition to chavismo has criticized this because of the shortages faced by Venezuela.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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New and Drastic Measures to Control the Pandemic in Havana, Camajuani and Pinar del Rio

Camajuaní returns to quarantine for the second time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. (Facebook/Dayron Pérez Urbano)

14ymedio, Havana, August 10, 2020 — The increase in Covid-19 cases in Cuba requires taking drastic measures not only in Havana but also in other zones of the Island that are affected by the resurgence, especially in Camajuaní, Artemisa and Pinar del Río.

The Cuban Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, said on television Saturday during his daily report that “the forecast indicates that the situation is almost out of control,” especially in Havana.

Although the number of deaths remains the same at 88, health authorities confirmed on Sunday 65 new cases from the day before. Of these, 29 are in the province of Havana, where, since Monday, restrictive measures going back to Phase 1 of the reopening have been put into force. continue reading

The rules include the suspension of public transport, with the exception of buses for essential workers in production, health and services who continue to work, and the total closing of beaches, bars and parks.

Unlike the previous stage, the authorities decided to leave chains of stores and businesses open “to avoid concentrations in one single place”, they said. Restaurants and cafeterias will be allowed to serve food for takeout.

Because of the increase in cases, the Spanish Consulate in Havana announced on Sunday that it is suspending services until further notice. “A counter will still be open for emergencies and documents”, the Consulate states on Twitter.

In Artemisa, where an outbreak was detected after a religious event, there were 17 new cases.

In Camajuaní, Villa Clara Province, where a local transmission event had been detected, the authorities announced a quarantine on Sunday, for the second time since the pandemic began.

People’s Councils 1 and 2 are now isolated, and vacationers at Juan Francisco, a popular beach, were evacuated. Public transport has been eliminated between Camajuaní and Santa Clara, Placetas, Encrucijada and Remedios.

At the moment, health activists from other territories have been mobilized to determine the number of inhabitants in the areas at risk and then to proceed to disinfect State and private centers that receive the public. The authorities have ordered commercial centers to make their sales on tables placed at the door and not inside. In the previous quarantine, the motel La Cañada was used to house those suspected of infection, but now they’re moved to Placetas or Santa Clara because Camajuaní lacks a hospital.

The manager of the Ministry of Tourism in the province, Regla Dayamí Armenteros, told local media that a total of 220 workers on Cayo Santa María, many of them from Camajuaní, would not return to work while the quarantine lasts. Those installations belonging to the Gaviota corporation had been open to international tourism since July 1. She added that the money would be returned or the date rescheduled for nationals who had made reservations in the hotels and camping centers.

Librado Linares, leader of the opposition movement Cubano Reflexión, explained to 14ymedio that Independencia Street, at the center of the municipal capital, was cordoned off with tape, and the police were only allowing passage to those who were previously authorized.

“Camajuaní has been known in the last few years for having a booming private economy. During the previous quarantine, which lasted around four months, many private businesses were on the brink of bankruptcy, mainly because they didn’t have any kind of subsidy. Now, just when they seemed to be recovering, they have to go back to closing their companies,” said the dissident.

Apart from the local event of open transmission in this municipality, six others were found in the country: in the Havana municipalities of Habana del Este, La Lisa and Marianao. In Artemisa, three remain active: in the municipality of Bauta (center and Playa Baracoa) and in the Special Development Zone of Mariel.

In Pinar del Río, only one new case was reported on Sunday, but the provincial authorities decided to quarantine anyone who came into the province for 14 days. They also declared a curfew for the population between midnight and 6:00 am, the closing of commercial and recreation centers from 11:00 pm and beaches from 5:00 pm.

“We’re not prohibiting private cars from coming into Pinar del Río, but people who come in are going to be submitted to a period of vigilance for 14 days,” said the President of the Council of Provincial Defense, Julio César Rodríguez Pimentel.

The Minister of Health, who includes in his daily report the imported cases — almost all coming from the medical brigades — suppressed in his last report the exact origin of 41 of the cases reported. Where he used to say “traveler coming from Venezuela”, now he says “source of infection abroad”.

Venezuela recorded 795 new cases of COVID-19 and 7 deaths on Saturday. The total number went up to 24,961 positive cases and 215 deaths.

The new figures threaten still more the economic collapse of the Island, where the pandemic has been met with a shortage of food, medicine and other products and lengthened the lines to purchase these items.

The optimism that existed from the beginning of July, when the the next opening of the longed-for international tourism was anticipated, is, for the moment, history.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Police Fight Illegal Currency Trafficking

Exchanging hard currency at banks is not a viable option due to long lines and an almost constant need to fill out paperwork. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, August 12, 2020 — Along with hoarders and coleros — people paid to wait in line — unofficial money changers are on the police’s radar. They are after individuals who exchange dollars and other hard currency on the black market. Raids began after digital classifieds began appearing on internet portals, where foreign currencies are one of the most frequently listed types of merchandise.

A house in Central Havana and another in Playa were the scenes of raids carried out by the Ministry of the Interior in which agents found cash in a variety of currencies totaling almost 1.3 million Cuban pesos according to a nightly news report on Tuesday.

Maylén Díaz Porro, operational officer with the Department of Technical Investigations, pointed out on state television that one of the alleged perpetrators had used the Revolico online sales platform to promote the sale of euros and dollars. Díaz added that the individual had also been visiting shopping centers, offering to “change money.” continue reading

According to the report security forces siezed 20,215 dollars, 12,097 convertible pesos, 445,350 Cuban pesos and 1,450 euros in the operations. Government sources added that agents also found small quantities of bills in other currencies.

Another officer explained that, during a search of the house in Playa, police found thirty-nine hundred-dollar bills, which were determined to be counterfeit by an “expert examination” carried out in the laboratory.

The report points out that the persons under investigation “have no employment relationship with the Cuban state yet have a high quality of life.” During the search agents confiscated “some records that suggest smuggling of imported merchandise through the use of mules.” Indications are the goods were later resold on the island, which is experiencing a growing shortage of consumer goods.

Armando Torres Aguirre, deputy director general of the National Bank, believes underground currency exchange has an economic impact on the country. He points out that Legal Decree 362 defines which financial institutions are authorized to carry out currency trading activities. The law specificies only “universal banks” and exchange bureaus such as Cadecas.

Cadecas was founded in 1994, after the possession of dollars was decriminalized. In recent years the number of its branches throughout the country has declined. Those that have remained open often do not have cash.

Banks remain an alternative for exchanging hard currency but long lines to make deposits, apply for a debit card or use other services mean they are not a viable option for the many customers who prefer to avoid long waits by turning to the underground market despite the risk that this entails.

On Tuesday the state newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported that the district attorney’s office in Ciego de Ávila province is preparing to try three individuals for “illegal trafficking of foreign currency and national currency.” All three are allegedly repeat offenders.

There are ninety-seven groups made up of more than 800 workers who, together with officers from the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, are looking into eighty-four retail establishments that have been identified as “vulnerable.”

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Overcome By Reality

A line this Monday at the doors of a bank in Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 17 August 2020 — The failure of the tests for the arrival of internet on mobile phones was the result of an “excess of demand,” according to statements at the time from Etecsa, Cuba’s telecommunications monopoly. The e-commerce platform TuEnvío collapsed shortly after the pandemic was declared due to an increase in purchases and, now, Fincimex cancels the delivery of magnetic cards to buy in foreign currency stores because a barrage of demands exhausted its supplies.

When we add the occasions on which state-owned companies justify their failures based on a surprising level of demand. We must conclude that the authorities are unaware of the national market, its needs and aspirations. Something difficult to believe in a centralized and planned economy, where – in theory – it would be easier to calculate the volume and intensity with which a product or service will be requested.

Such great business blindness is the daughter of multiple factors that continue to run rampant in the economy of this Island. One of them is the excess of triumphalism, which makes functionaries and ministers believe the pseudo-reality manufactured by the official discourse and media. From so much repeating “yes we can,” and from propagating the inflated figures for production or development, many of these leaders draw up plans that are more in sync with what should be than to what really is. continue reading

The difference between what is dreamed of and what is possible ends up breaking the chain at the weakest link, the customers of these state companies

The difference between what is dreamed of and what is possible ends up breaking the chain at the weakest link, the customers of those state companies, which have miscalculated their potential, at the same time that they underestimate the customer’s right to receive good treatment. Then come the complaints, the phones that ring for hours in the offices of these entities without being answered, the attempts to blame the citizens for their indiscipline or anxiety, and the repeated justification that “we did not imagine that there would be so many requests.”

The main cause for this bungling rests in the ignorance that the ruling class has about the people who walk the streets of this country. For them, from their vantage point of privileges and comforts, we Cubans should behave as humble beings, who accept what comes without demands or complaints. An individual with no desire for prosperity, no particular tastes, who does not criticize state management and waits in a disciplined way for what is his share through rationed distribution.

For ministers, soldiers, high officials and other subjects who receive perks, it is very difficult to imagine the agitation generated in families by any opportunity, however small, to improve their day-to-day activities. Those who take home an assortment of food and hygiene products free of charge cannot understand the mother who waits for weeks for a magnetic card that can be loaded with remittances from her son, so that she, after long hours in line, can buy tomato sauce and detergent in a store that accepts payments only in foreign exchange.

The problem is that those who design the economic policies and business plans of the country are precisely those who receive privileges and comforts for free. Hence, time and time again, they make the same mistake of underestimating people’s needs and calculating the demand that any new service will generate. With a full plate, a car with a full gas tank, and a free telephone service, they are light years away from that galaxy that is “the real Cuba.”

No, it is not the excess of requests that collapses the services, but the distance that separates the planners from the customers.

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Cuban Financial Institution Won’t Issue New Debit Cards Because of Shortages of Many Products

Debit cards are used to receive remittances and to make purchases in the hard-currency stores that have recently opened for the sale of food and personal hygiene and cleaning products.

14ymedio, Havana, August 16, 2020 — The financial institution Fincimex announced that beginning this Monday, it won’t accept new requests for AIS (American International Service) debit cards, used to receive remittances and make purchases in the hard-currency stores that were recently opened for the sale of food and personal hygiene and cleaning products.

“It’s reported that beginning this next Monday, August 17, we find it impossible to accept new requests for AIS cards. The rise in demand has surpassed our capacity to import certain consumables,” the company said on its official Facebook page. Fincimex belongs to the Cimex Group, which is managed by the Armed Forces.

Fincimex’ announcement contrasts with the company’s official statement four days ago, said a client on social media, who was worried about the delay in the delivery of his card. “They’re issuing 4,000 cards daily. Right now there isn’t any problem with the products.” continue reading

Last June, Fincimex, which was created as a company in Panamá 25 years ago, was sanctioned by Washington and included on the blacklist of firms with which the U.S. is prohibited from doing business.

The penalty from the U.S. Government heightened concern for many clients, but Fincimex said that “all the cards requested before August 6 are ready”. In the communication this week, the company explains that the cancellation of the service has given them incentive to “become better organized for the present high demand”.

“We are working to make the interruption as brief as possible. We shall return,” says the text.

However, complaints have leaked out about the cards, and many clients are upset about Fincimex’ inefficiency. “Why don’t they pick up the phone when you call? I need to know if I can get my card and not make an unnecessary trip,” asked Yami Romero in a comment. “The lines are dead,” was all the company answered.

“My husband spent days trying to request one for me and it was impossible. I wrote to them, called, and no one answered,” complained Dayanna Castillo.

The opening of hard-currency stores with food and personal hygiene and cleaning products forms part of the package of measures that the Government presented as a necessary decision before the economic crisis that the country is experiencing in the middle of the pandemic.

Before the controversy that this news generated, Government officials say that the income collected in these stores will allow them to improve the offers in the Cuban Convertible peso and Cuban peso markets, which are in constant crisis with the shortages.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban State “Is Intensifying Its War Against Farmers,” Farmers’ Groups Inform Bachelet

A Cuban farmer plows the land with his oxen. (CC)

14ymedio, Havana, August 13, 2020 — “We’re approaching a famine that can be avoided,” begins the letter that the League of Independent Cuban Farmers and the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (Flamur) delivered to the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

The authors of the letter request an urgent intervention from the ex-President of Chile, in order to avoid starvation on the Island. “The cause is not external or related to a natural disaster. The famine that is appearing on the Cuban horizon is a consequence of the fierce internal blockade of our productivity by the national Government,” say the signatories, who have been launching the campaign for a few months: Without the countryside there’s no country. They are asking the authorities to eliminate the tax on farming, and they demand permanent title to their property.

“We can assure you that the U.S. embargo doesn’t prevent the Cuban Government from buying, every year, tons of food from that country that it later sells to the population at notably higher prices,” they continue. “Nor are medicines included in the sanctions. Cuba imports 80% of its food because of the State’s inability to produce it. If now the Cuban Government doesn’t have money, it’s because, in addition to their poor economic management and the impact of Covid-19 on tourism, it hasn’t complied with its commitments to pay the interest on the debts it assumed after its creditors forgave billions of dollars five years ago,” they argue. continue reading

In a telephone conversation, Esteban Ajete Abascal, leader of the League of Independent Farmers and one of the signers of the letter, together with Lisandra Orraca Guerra, President of the Cuba Chapter of Flamur, told 14ymedio that the letter was sent to Bachelet “through friends of good will who have a way to channel this request”, and she claims that there’s a “permanent system of surveillance” over her “on the part of the political police and its other mechanisms of control. They’re waiting for the right moment to do us harm,” she says

The document points out something “that many ignore”: private Cuban businesses “are not included in the sanctions, and any business in the United States can do business with and even invest in them, but the Cuban Government has never allowed it”.

Furthermore, they criticize the State system of Acopio, which “monopolizes” the production and commercialization of the farmers, who are “up to their eyes in taxes, harassed with continuous inspections and the confiscation of their harvests and farming equipment”.

Ajete told this newspaper that he doesn’t rely on statistics about the number of farmers who have had the fruit of their labor and their farming equipment confiscated. “It’s really hard for us to have access to the data, and we lack the necessary mobility to get these statistics, but we rely on brave people who dare to denounce the abuses,” he explained. “We’re speaking for those who aren’t allowed to go on television or other official media to tell their version of events.”

“They’ve declared an economic war against us, and special operatives from the Armed Forces and the police are taking part in it, and through their monopoly of the communications media they’re engaging in constant assassination campaigns against our reputation”, they say in the letter to the High Commissioner.

While the official press portrays the independent farmers as “selfish bandits”, they themselves say they’re the “bearers of the solution to avoiding a famine for the population”.

As for the number of field workers who don’t own the land they work on, Ajete tells 14ymedio that “right now there’s an insignificant number of farmers who own very small parcels of land, and most of their production is in tobacco”, and he remembers when his grandfather was offered a ridiculous amount of money to buy the land for a farming cooperative in San Juan y Martínez, in the province of Pinar del Río. “The cooperativization wasn’t exactly forced, but there was enormous political pressure. Only a few resisted; some others were allowed to leave the land to their children and grandchildren.”

At the end of the letter, the farmers tell Bachelet that their initiative Without the countryside there is no country has not received a response from the Government.

On the contrary, they say that it “has intensified the Government’s economic war of confiscations and arbitrary arrests against the farmers”, and they make a forceful comparison: “Their present methods aren’t any different from those of the militant communism — which Lenin had to rectify — or those of Stalin, when he induced a famine in the Ukraine, which cost the lives of millions of people”.

Finally, the farmers urge the Commissioner: “Invite the Cuban Government to find inspiration in the political power of the Vietnamese leaders who, after helping the international community to feed a starving population, took the path of reform that made them self-sufficient and the exporter of food in barely five years”. And they conclude: “You are not Walter Duranty, the New York Times correspondent in Moscow who was complicit with Stalin in hiding the horror of the Ukraine famine during the Holodomar. To speak loudly, clearly and opportunely to Power in the name of those who don’t have voices, that is your mission”.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Writer Angel Santiesteban Receives the Vaclav Havel Award for Creative Dissent

The opponent Ángel Santiesteban, recently awarded the Václav Havel prize. (Twitter / @ BlogAngelSP)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 August 2020 — The Václav Havel Library Foundation announced this Thursday that Cuban author Ángel Santiesteban Prats is the 2020 winner of the award given to a writer at risk.

“Because of his open opposition to the regime, Santiesteban has been the subject of continuous harassment and accusations,” says the New York-based foundation in its statement, which notes that, in 2012, he was sentenced to five years in prison for his opposition to the dictatorship of the Castros.

“The regime tried to hide him in a military hospital claiming a dermatological treatment, but his family and his lawyer said it was a ruse to deprive him of access to the Commission of National and International Journalists, which had permission to visit him in the prison where he was previously,” says the statement.

The award includes $5,000 in cash and a one-month residency at the Václav Havel Library in Prague. The Foundation announced that the award will be presented at an online gala on September 24.

Santiesteban was released from prison in November 2015, but since then he has continued to come under pressure from the authorities. A year later, he would be arrested again and released hours later.

The writer, who in 2016 won the Reinaldo Arenas de Narrativa prize for The Return of Mambrú, has been awarded for other titles such as The Children Nobody Wanted (Alejo Carpentier Prize 2001) or Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Casa de las Américas Prize 2006). In 2009, he started the blog The Children Nobody Wanted. He is also co-writer of the film Plantados, about to be released, about the political prisoners of the 60s in Cuba.

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Quarantine and a Toothache

With so many daily cases that are being reported in the country, there is a greater possibility of transmission of the disease in such a place. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 August 2020 — The pain appears on Sunday night. That tooth that broke months ago shows its face. I try to think that the discomfort will pass, as we always think when we have pain. And it may happen, but for the moment: pain is just a symptom that something is rotten. The next day, the cheek is all swollen.

I should have gone to the dentist earlier, I think. Now, in full return to the confinement of the pandemic, just as the city abandons phase 1 of the de-escalation and resumes the strictest measures against the coronavirus, going to a medical consultation seems to me little less than a slow suicide.

I consult some medical friends over the phone and they all give the same advice: start taking antibiotics and then go to the dentist. I listen to them, but I can only take the antibiotics for 48 hours: which is the amount I have on hand. I know that I will not get more in pharmacies, where there is a shortage of drugs. continue reading

The situation does not improve and an infection in the mouth is serious. I pluck up the courage to go to the nearest polyclinic.

I clean my shoes on a blanket soaked in chlorine, I rub my hands with a few drops of hypochlorite, and I am ready to walk through the door of the health center.

In the waiting room, there are only two people: an older man also with a toothache — his seems more serious than mine, because he covers his cheek with a handkerchief — and a young man whose lip has been bitten by a dog.

I should have come earlier, I think again. But the truth is that the terror of contagion gripped me, knowing the limited means of protection that are used in the clinics.

At the window to ask for the turn to be seen, the employee says that they are only attending emergency cases. “Until now we had the consultation open but as of noon they told us to close,” she explains. I detail my case and show her my face, and she calls one of the dentists on duty to decide whether or not I can pass. The inflammation is eloquent: the specialist decides to treat me.

While I wait, dentists are leaving one after another and saying goodbye to their colleagues. “I’m leaving, tell my patients that I’m not coming back until classes start, whatever it is, in December or January,” says one. It has to be a joke.

Fifteen minutes later, they announce that we must wait another half hour to be seen. “All the instruments right now are in the autoclave — the sterilizing device — I ask you not to leave so that you do not miss this opportunity,” says an employee to the three of us who are waiting in the room, patients in its double meaning.

Finally it happened. At the consultation, I see that the dentist and his assistant are wearing double masks and a transparent plastic mask. He puts on the new gloves: “Open your mouth!”

I freeze, nervous with fear. With so many daily cases that are being reported in the country, there is a greater possibility of transmission of the disease in such a place, I tell the doctor.

“It is true that the routine we have constantly exposes us to the virus. Here everything is a risk, the viral load that patients expel, the use of instruments and machines, the inevitable proximity to the mouth, are all high-risk operations in the middle of the pandemic,” says the assistant, trying to reassure me. “But don’t worry, we have taken all the measures we have within our power.”

Finally I open my mouth and after looking at the affected area with the mirror, the doctor says: “There is only one way out for this, extraction.” The operation ends in ten minutes. I can’t help but wonder if those ten minutes have been enough for the contagion.

“I’m going to prescribe you azithromycin, which is now the only antibiotic available, and dipyrone in case you have pain,” says the dentist, also noting the specific pharmacy to go to.

In the pharmacy the employee charges me 11 pesos for three antibiotic tablets and warns me: “Forget about dipyrone, there is no such thing anywhere.”

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Cuba’s Schools Will Open September 1, Except in Havana

When the schools open, some new measures will be taken, such as designing staggered schedules for recess and eliminating the morning assembly. (Newspaper26 / Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 15 August 2020 — On Friday’s Roundtable TV program, the Minister of Education, Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella, answered the question of many parents: when will the schools open? The official explained that schools will open on September 1, the course will be restarted in all provinces except Havana, which is experiencing a tense “epidemiological situation” due to covid-19.

Velázquez specified that students will start in the same grade they were in when schools closed for the pandemic, because the first month will be used to complete the studies for the 2019-2020 course that will conclude on October 31. Only then will the new school year begin and for about three weeks the students will have reviews to take the final evaluations.

At this time, some measures will be taken such as designing staggered hours for recess, eliminating the morning assembly and prohibiting workers and students with respiratory symptoms from entering the schools, nor will people who are not employees be allowed access. continue reading

Similarly, the mandatory use of face masks is established, along with the disinfection of the hands and the classrooms, using bleach and also a chlorinated solution. In school canteens, in addition to sanitary measures, physical distancing will have to be guaranteed. Somewhat difficult due to the infrastructure and water supply problems of many locations.

In response to the concern that some parents have expressed on social networks about how contagion will be avoided in institutions, Velázquez pointed to the collective responsibility, saying “it is not only important what the educational center does, but also what is done in the home environment and other spaces.”

Due to the complex situation that the capital is experiencing in the confrontation with Covid-19, the course will not restart in the city on September 1 like the rest of the provinces. According to the minister, decisions will be taken in Havana in correspondence with the epidemiological situation. “In this scenario, as the students must be kept at home, we will develop television programs to reinforce the preparation of the students,” she said.

“I am happy with this measure, I am concerned about the figures that we have seen recently every morning at the Durán press conference. At home we had already decided not to send the children to school but we were waiting for a response from the ministry which, luckily, has been to delay the course in the case of Havana,” Deisy Linares, a resident of the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, told 14ymedio.

Also postponed is the return of teachers who reside in other provinces but who work in the capital. They represent 50% of the teachers who are working in Havana today.

Regarding the case of the municipalities of Camajuaní and Bauta, which are currently in quarantine, she reported that they will be specifically monitored to take specific measures with them.

In her speech, the minister acknowledged that at the beginning of the pandemic, more than a thousand schools were identified “where there were difficulties in complying with hygienic-sanitary measures” and that some have spent the last months addressing these problems. “It demanded hard work to solve the problems detected, fundamentally related to the plumbing and water supply facilities,” she explained.

Those schools where there were overcrowded conditions were also identified and she explained that the necessary measures have been taken in these cases to meet current requirements.

The minister confirmed that the Ministry of Public Health has been in charge of carrying out the sanitary certification in each school, a process that she assured is “almost concluded.” She pointed out that of the total of all facilities, 127 have not obtained the certification.

The Cuban authorities suspended classes in March as part of the measures to combat Covid-19. During one stage the students received content on television through educational programs and later enjoyed their vacation period.

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Project to Contract With Cuban Doctors Without Going Through the Cuban Government is Advancing

Some 25,000 Cuban doctors have been deployed in Venezuela on different missions. (Facebook/Misión Médica Cubana en Venezuela)

14ymedio, Havana, August 10, 2020 — The organization Archivo Cuba (Cuba Archive) and the platform No Somos Desertores (We are not Deserters), formed by Cuban health workers who are prevented by their Government from returning to the Island, have publicized an initiative for connecting Cuban doctors with countries that need reinforcements for their health systems during the pandemic. Negotiations have begun with two countries from the American continent.

The initiative, “Médicos Cubanos Libres contra el Covid-19” (Free Cuban Doctors Against Covid-19), intends to promote contracting directly with Cuban health workers without government intermediaries, as happens now, guaranteeing labor conditions, direct payment of salaries, trip expenses, lodging and medical insurance.

In the press release, the NGO, headquartered in Miami, announces that the project will allow Cuban doctors to “exercise their profession freely”. It also points out that, at present, they receive an average salary of less than 70 dollars a month and can work only “for the State, under total control of the Communist Party of Cuba”. continue reading

On the other hand, they explain that outside Cuba, most of the doctors who have emigrated in search of better conditions for life and liberty “aren’t managing to have their qualifications recognized and face all kinds of obstacles”. Archivo Cuba says that the countries that hire Cuban doctors independently will gain access to medical specialists “without entering into bilateral accords with the Cuban State, which institutes a form of modern slavery and human trafficking”.

Thus, they explain, the contracting party will avoid the Cuban Government’s requirements that the accords demand, such as “paying personnel who watch and discipline (“manage”) doctors and oblige them to buy drugs and medical supplies subject to murky practices for increasing income to the Cuban State, and they will have an alternative that “respects workers’ rights and upholds international rights”.

Archivo Cuba gives as an example the French territory of Martinique, which recently signed an agreement to import a brigade of 14 Cuban health workers and an “administrator”, through which the workers would be paid 23 euros a day. “This is less than 25% of the pay that toilet cleaners receive in the Fort-de-France hospital”, they say, and they argue: “France should abide by the institutional mechanisms of the European Union to combat human trafficking, and contracting Cuban doctors directly represents a practical and humanitarian solution that will avoid legal repercussions“.

In response to questions by 14ymedio, María Werlau, the President of the NGO, says that she’s been talking to parliamentarians “in two countries who are very interested, but that doesn’t include Martinique”.

As far as the professionals who might be interested, the organization says that it will notify them directly of any employment opportunity. The confidentiality of the organization’s data, explains Werlau, will be guaranteed, and only two people in Archivo Cuba will have access to it. “We’re only connecting interested parties with employment managers once we can give them the details of offers that are concrete and they authorize us to do so”, she specifies.

Exporting health services is the major source of income for the Cuban Government. In 2018, the last year of official statistics, Cuba received $6.4 billion for the export of health services.

Since last March, the Cuban Government has taken advantage of Covid-19 to send some 3,000 health workers to more than 40 countries, which, in addition to the fortune in payments this supposes, has allowed them to launch a world-wide propaganda campaign, even to claim the Nobel Peace Prize for the medical brigades, which they hope will be announced on the anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth on August 13.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Trending on Cuba’s Official Networks: A Vaccine and an Anniversary

The Faculty of Communication is the ideal setting to create false campaigns to support the Cuban system on social media. (FCOM)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 August 2020 — Right about now a script is repeated in the official media. Photos, headlines and slogans focus on Fidel Castro, in anticipation of his birthday tomorrow. A media offensive that has barely changed since my days as a journalism student, and one to which — in the midst of this pandemic — is added the propaganda about an early Cuban vaccine against Covid-19.

This week, University of Havana students in the Faculty of Communication are participating in a marathon on Twitter and other social networks. The objective of this digital crusade is to praise, like two legs of the same table, the figure of Castro and the scientific potential of the Island to develop an immediate cure against this pandemic.

As university classes are canceled and the homebound students become uncontrollable, some of them have been summoned to appear physically at the Communications Faculty, located on San Pedro Street and Independence Avenue in Havana. In front of a keyboard and a screen, they have hours of arduous “ideological battle” ahead of them on the networks. continue reading

Several of these future journalists arrived at the school aboard a four-door SUV owned by the Faculty, driven by the driver of the dean herself, Hilda Saladrigas Medina. Saladrigas is an academic who, among her multiple awards, holds that of a specialist in Social and Organizational Communication Management, skills that she has put to the test this August.

Among the methods of managing social and organizational communication is precisely this practice of providing spaces equipped with technology and connectivity to a group of individuals who are entrusted with the task of transmitting a message. Not only do they post on the site while others monitor them for compliance, but they also receive a detailed list of hashtags and phrases to use on the internet.

The material costs are borne by the state budget. Participation is guaranteed, either by choosing those who consciously share the content of the message, or by motivating with some benefit those who see an opportunity to stand out. In the event that there are no resources available to materialize the motivation, there is always the possibility of pressuring those who don’t show any interest.

The Faculty of Communication is the ideal setting for these practices: its classrooms are full of young people, with fewer spelling mistakes than in other specialties and an obligation to be very loyal, on pain of being expelled from their chosen career. In my student days we were called to sweeten the numbers of the 10 Million Ton Harvest, now it is their turn to pretend that they recall a historical corpse.

With this mechanism of pressure and perks, young journalists have been involved in this century in the campaign to free the five Cuban intelligence agents imprisoned in US jails, denigrate dissidents who have accounts on social networks, show a false support for the appointment of Miguel Díaz-Canel as president and, now, give a glimmer of hope that the vaccine against covid-19 will be “Made in Cuba.”

The front page of the official newspaper Granma already advanced this Wednesday what is exploited as “spontaneous” in the networks. In the center of the gaze we see an image of Fidel Castro, and immediately below is the headline that announces that the Island is “on the way to …” take over the shield to repel the coronavirus. The pattern of what to say is clear, now it only remains for dozens or hundreds of young fingers to type on both topics.

The effect of this handling of communications management, in which Saladrigas is an expert, is that the lack of creativity, the repetition of slogans, the “cut and paste” that the students call on for their congratulations, and in the obviousness that few believe that there are so many people willing to spend their megabytes purchased at abusive prices to remember a deceased individual.

Not even a vaccine can revive the dead.

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Official Cuban Sources: The Rise in Coronavirus Infections is “Alarming”

Several people wait their turn outside a bakery in Havana this Tuesday. (EFE / Yander Zamora)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 August 2020 — The 47 new Covid19 positive cases reported this Tuesday in Cuba — 39 of them in Havana — were far from the 93 on Monday, the highest figure recorded so far, but they show that infections on the island continue to rise.

Experts whose statements have collected by the official Cuban News Agency (ACN) are concerned. “The curve is not at all promising, as it predicts a rapid growth in confirmed cases and, consequently, in active cases,” Professor Raúl Guinovart, dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing at the University of Havana, published on his Facebook profile.

Pedro Más, vice president of the Cuban Society of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said that the number of confirmed cases “could be lower but should not be underestimated.”

The ACN recalls that in May, the EndCoronavirus.org site placed Cuba among the countries that were managing to control the pandemic, while now, three months later, the Island not only does not appear on the list of countries close to taming the disease, but among those that need urgent action.

Of the 93 new cases registered on Monday, 10 come from abroad, but the rest, emphasizes the state agency, are autochthonous. “The truth is that the situation is alarming and the outbreak, predicted by the experts for November, has advanced much more strongly than expected,” says the ACN.

As of Tuesday, the Island has recorded a total of 3,093 positives, of which 2,742 patients have already recovered – including 12 in the last day – for 88.6% of the total, while the death count has remained at 88 for the week, according to the daily report of the Ministry of Public Health.

The numbers have forced the authorities to take drastic measures, especially in the capital, Camajuaní, Artemisa and Pinar del Río, where local transmission events were detected.

In Havana, public transport has been suspended since Monday, with the exception of buses for workers in the essential sectors of production, health and services who continue to work, and the total closure of beaches, bars and recreational parks was decreed.

Although domestic tourism has not been completely banned, it has been severely affected by the suspension of these activities months ago, and the capital’s airport will continue to be closed until further notice. It is also feared that the new outbreaks will affect the planned opening of schools, scheduled for September.

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Ice Cream Flavors are Convoyed* in a ‘Militarized’ Coppelia

When it’s your turn to buy, the customer must approach a table, each with a bottle of hand sanitizer, and then they tell you where you can make your purchase.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 11 August 2020 — Although Havana has just resumed the most drastic measures to stop the pandemic after the increase in cases of Covid-19 on the island, the Coppelia ice cream parlor has not completely closed its doors. In the middle of August, one of the hottest months of the year, some takeaway ice cream outlets have been kept open.

This Tuesday the largest at the kiosk on the side where ice cream has always been sold to-go, but now there were also several points of sale within the same ice cream parlor.

“It is all militarized, full of officers dressed in green everywhere. When it comes to buying, the customer approaches a table, each one has its own hand sanitizer bottle with a clerk, and there they tell you where you can make your purchase.”

Each person could purchase 40 scoops per person for the price of one peso and fifty cents a scoop. A woman, who went with two relatives, was able to take home almost a full tub.

“The flavors are not well distributed, but the worst of all is that I lined up where supposedly there were choco-coconut, almond, mint, and curly guava and at 11:15 the choco-coconut and almond were gone. But not only that, when I asked for curly guava what was left was just the bottom of the tub and he told me that I had to convoy* it with mint,” a young man who was standing in line this morning told14ymedio.

“Like always, everything ’convoyed’ … The things of socialism,” he said.

*Translator’s note: Convoy -> ‘Escort’: Go with one person or one thing from one place to another for their protection (The Free Dictionary) [Translator’s comment: Hopefully the ice creams feel very safe traveling together in this way.]

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Turning towards Capitalism in Castro’s Cuba

A privately owned cafe near the Havana airport. (14ymedio/Archivo)

14ymedio, Jorge Hernández Fonseca, Madrid, 8 August 2020 — Castro’s Cuba is taking a second step — timid but in the right direction — towards the implementation of a capitalist economy. First, it has partially dollarized the sale of basic goods, though it continues to pay people’s wages in a worthless currency. Second, it is doing away with the list of approved occupations, a list that dates back to colonial times, and replacing it with something more convoluted lest anyone realize that the new forms of employment are “private companies.”

There is a lot of fear within the communist regime that the Cuban people might notice how, after more than sixty years of socialist misery, all the concrete solutions being implemented are capitalist. In regards to the formation of new companies, the regime has begun asking would-be entrepreneurs (formerly referred to as cuentapropistas) to come up with “proposals” so that their business plans can be analyzed and authorized, or not, depending on the mood of the envious communist bureaucrats reviewing them.

It would be much easier to just publish the requirements for setting up small and medium sized businesses but the optics would not be good. It would be acknowledging in writing what Marxist doctrine has always denied. “What would we say to the old owners of small and medium sized Cuban businesses?” Raul might might ask at a meeting convened to discuss the topic.

Although the Cuban exodus during the 1960s was made up of the cream of Cuban society, at least in terms of their entrepreneurial skills and experience, the success of other Cubans in the United States and other countries demonstrates that entrepreneurial talent still exists on the island. If government leaders decided to seriously — they would have to do it seriously, which has not always been the case — the Cuban people could, at a minimum, enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner, which they have not been able to do for sixty years.

Perhaps we will have to wait until Raul Castro dies before making the leap to capitalism. But who knows if pressure from the street might force the general, in his waning days, to accept the defeat of his ideology in exchange for the welfare of his people? That is something the Communist Party has never prioritized. As everyone knows, the priority of the Castro brothers has always been holding onto power.

We are not talking about unrestricted freedom, something the Cuban people seek and deserve. It is simply the authorized introduction of capitalist practices into the economy, as happened in China and Vietnam, to alleviate endemic socialist inefficiencies. Nevertheless, at least in the case of Cuba, it would be a first step towards a future of total freedom for the Cuban people, something Fidel Castro never allowed, knowing that it would mean a fall from power.

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Havana Returns to a Previous Phase to Fight a Resurgence in Covid-19

The return to a previous phase of control for Covid-19 in Havana makes the lines and shortages worse.

14ymedio, Havana, August 8, 2020 — The Cuban Government ordered the province of Havana to return to the phase of “limited local transmission” after a month of Phase 1 of the recovery. This was announced on Friday, after the daily meeting of the temporary working group on COVID-19, headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The number of positives and serious cases hasn’t stopped going up in the last 10 days, and on Friday, 165 active cases and six open events were reported in the municipalities of Habana del Este, La Lisa and Marianao.

The Vice Prime Minister, Roberto Morales Ojeda, explained that “mathematical models” suggest that the Government “take measures that are very energetic, restrictive, complete and immediate”. continue reading

So the capital and its province take a step backwards to Phase 1, where it was on July 3. The return to this “phase of limited local transmission” supposes that only essential activities will take place, and that there will be strict restrictions on transport.

As part of these measures, the Havana airport will remain closed for an indefinite period, according to a report in el Nuevo Herald, and the much-desired arrival of international tourism will remain stopped.

The return to classes in September also remains compromised.

In Friday’s meeting, the situation in the province of Artemisa was evaluated, where there were three events of local transmission: one in the urban center of the municipality of Bauta and another in the People’s Council of Baracoa, where authorities say they’ve stabilized the contagion. There is also a report of an event at the Company of Construction and Assembly belonging to the Mariel Special Economic Development Zone.

In the municipality of Camajuaní, Villa Clara, nine positive cases have been confirmed. Some of these people stayed in Havana, and the location was put under immediate quarantine.

For several weeks, the authorities have been blaming the resurgence in cases on “indiscipline”, and although Díaz-Canel reflected on the attitude of people who “aren’t inert, aren’t comfortable, aren’t satisfied” and therefore have the “will to confront anything”, he warned “the irresponsible ones, those who don’t cooperate: we have to tell them that this isn’t a game that you lose”.

With 310 active cases on the Island, the President notes that the pattern of behavior in the last two weeks has been favorable in the country, except in Havana and Artemisa: “In Artemisa, we can recover faster; in Havana, we have to work harder because the contagion is greater.”

The authorities in Havana have already published new restrictive measures on Thursday to try to stop the rise in illness in the capital, which includes a curfew from 11:00 pm to 9:00 am, restricting entrance from nearby provinces and limiting the hours for bars and restaurants.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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